So.....If he is calling himself a church.....would that make him a non rofit organization?
Because if so, then wouldn't he be commiting some sort of fraud by accepting payments for martial arts lessons?

I guess it could be written off as a "donation" to the church. hmmm.

Anybody else find anything?

as far as i know, and i could be wrong, as long as the martial arts school business and the church have separate tax id numbers, and they are filed separately, then there wouldn't be a problem. otherwise, so long as he is showing that the profits from the ma school are being reinvested into the school or church and not being used as profits per say, then there wouldn't be a problem.

but, i wouldn't be surprised if he is just barely flying below the irs radar on this one.

i'm really tempted to go there one day, but sunday is the only day i have off, its a 30 minute drive, and i'm worried all i will come up with is, "yeah, the guy is bullshit alright".

edit* if anybody in the bullshido community wants me to go check this guy out, pm me with specifics of what you would want me to find out, and i'll do my best to get out there one sunday.

Last edited by omoplatypus; 12/01/2008 12:13am at .
Reason: hit submit to soon

I agree with what you are saying. But something dosen't quite seem right.

Anyway, if I can figure anything else out that we might need ot know i will most certainly let you know. i am not sure if it is a good idea if i go though. I did used to be a student of his. I am not sure if i look different enough to not be noticed.

I will see what i can do. And will let you know if i can go with you on one sunday.

I agree with what you are saying. But something dosen't quite seem right.

Anyway, if I can figure anything else out that we might need ot know i will most certainly let you know. i am not sure if it is a good idea if i go though. I did used to be a student of his. I am not sure if i look different enough to not be noticed.

I will see what i can do. And will let you know if i can go with you on one sunday.

if you want to head up there with me, that would be cool. we could definately meet up and cruise on up to shmucky shmeckelstien's first united antioch mcdojo of jebuz's salvation inc.

if you're worried about being recognized, i'll just wear my tzitzis and black fedora. you can tell him you found a jew in need of the precious saving blood of the jesus *patent pending* and that i have a blank money order in my pocket. he'll bite, i'm sure of it.

but on a serious note, i would like to talk to him about his charities. my first career was as a social worker, so i know a thing or two about bullshido charities. just pm me and i'll get in touch with you. we might get a pretty juicy report for this site.

So, this morning, nofear900 and I met up at denny's for some breakfast and headed out to sc ray's "church".

i had some questions i wanted answered about his india charity. first off, why did he want donation checks made out to his school? what transparency was there for knowing what happened to the money? how much of the money would make it to india? and finally, how could i donate directly to his causes in india?

all this is important because if you have a check made out to a business, it must go into a business account with the same titling on it. you cannot just cash the check and you cannot get cash back on the deposit. it has to go into the account in it's entirety, then withdrawals can be made. if you are giving him a check made out to his business for the purpose of his india charity, then you have zero promise that the money will wind up where it's supposed to. also, i checked with the secretary of state via their website, and there was nothing supporting sc ray's tax exempt status as a church or a charitable organization.

we made the half hour trip from denny's to north county to find the church/school and damnit if ray wasn't there. turns out he is in india for the next 2 weeks. the church service was about 15-20 people watching a dvd of another church service on a big screen tv. lots of singing and clapping and dancing around was going on. while i checked that out, nofear900 was talking to a woman who worked there. she was trying to sell him on some krotty lessons. i was watching the crowd and reading the pamphlet (btw, nofear will be posting scanned images of all the crap we got handed to us, and some choice flyers we snagged off the buletin board in the hallway).

now, one of two scenerios is possible here. he is either registered as a for profit business and he is milking everything he can out of students, congregation members, and doners, all while not doing crap with his churches in india (now he claims it's up from 14 to 15), OR he is actually regestered as a tax exempt church/charitable organization but he is running a for profit martial arts school in the same store front. those are the only to logical explinations as to why donation checks are to be made out to his business.

another thing to look at, there is no garentee that you will even hear from the kids you sponsor in india. on the donation form, you acknowledge that you may not have correspondance from them, and you wont hold sc ray or his cronies responsible if you don't. way to cover your bases there!

one final thing, here is an exact quote from this weeks church worship flyer.
"god has blessed me [stephen c ray] with the gifts of faith, discernment and the anointing to heal the sick, cast out devils, and speak deliverance to those that are in bondage. "

you know, i need a root canal and my hamstring is still fubar. if my tooth healed and my leg went back to normal, i would quit being a jew and get saved right then and there if he could heal me. also, did i just read that he is performing exorcisms now? he also has the gift of discernment? so, i want to know what kind of track record he has to know when people are really possesed by deamons, and when they are just nuttier than squirrel ****, and what his exorcism process is like. if he's a healer, then why doesn't he stop off at the de peres hospital on 270 and rock rd. and visit the children's ward on his way back from the airport when he gets home on the 16th.

his "church" is watching a dvd and listening to a crappy canned sermon. his school is crap. his orphanage and indian churches are dubious at best. his tax status is questionable, and we haven't even gotten to the images that nofear is going to put up. watch for his guilt trip to sell **** out of the pro shop. it's classic.

thank you for your time. i know this was a lot to read. hopefully we will have even more in the near future. to all the st. louis people, now is the time to head out there and talk to his not so savvy hired helpers, and i will see you all at the next local throwdown.

I know it will take work but, can you quote specific Tax code he would be violating.

Also, great explanation on the business vs charity that is very telling.

i don't know the specific code. i'm a personal/small business banker, not a tax lawyer. but i do know that if you are collecting as a charity, you must be registered as a charitable organization with the state dept. of revenue and the irs. if you're a private individual collecting, that is fine, but you still have to have transperancy in your collections. this would be through the tax deduction recipts given to doners, and the recipts of the charity recieving the gross donations.

what i'm actually most fearful of, is that he is taking other people's money in the form of checks to the school, counting it as income, then bundling up enough to drop him into a lower tax bracket and donating it himself as his own deduction. bundling scams are unfortunately not uncommon. it can save you a LOT of money in taxes.

Basically, he could make $100,000 dollars a year but, he writes half of that off as deductions, dropping him say to 50,000 tax bracket instead?

That is pretty shady if, like you said, he is putting it back into his income not into a charity.

you got it. you give me a few thousand for my indian orphanage, i take that put it in my own account. buy a new car, pay my mortgage, whatever. then drop a portion into a legit charity that is very similar to the one i advertised to you, and boom. now i'm in a lower tax bracket and i got some free cash.